The art of making glass beads particularly multi-colored glass beads has been highly developed over the years and under most bead production processes in use today a high production rate has been achieved for manufacturing beads formed entirely of glass material with a central bore therethrough for stringing beads on strand material and the like. While the quality of such beads is satisfactory using present day production processes, the problem of maintaining a properly dimensioned central bore to the bead still has not been satisfactorily solved. If the bead bore is non-uniform insertion of the strand material therethrough is difficult and frequently impossible, frustrating the worker or hobbiest and frequently resulting in the bead being discarded. Furthermore, presently produced beads are quite fragile and are easily damaged and even destroyed during use.
The following U.S. Pat. Nos. are representative of the prior art pertaining to the subject matter of the invention:
2,206,597 Canfield et al. PA0 3,169,310 Gibson et al. PA0 3,546,909 Gartrell PA0 3,922,458 Lynch PA0 4,081,575 Sprig
The Lynch patent refers to a method of applying a decorative enamel surface to to a steel article in which layers of first and second enamel are applied to a cooking vessel or the like and fused by temperature. The Gartrell patent refers to a process and apparatus for applying vitreous enamel to a preheated metal sheet wound on a coil a dry powder vitreous enamel frit or slip being applied to one or both sides of the heated sheet and melted to form an enamel coating. The Gibson et al. patent relates to the production of vitreous enamel coatings in which a ground-coated metal base is fired in a non-oxidizing atmosphere an adherent type, light blue oxide coating or the like being formed on the surface of the base metal prior to applying the ground coat. The Canfield et al. patent relates to a process of producing an enamel article in which an iron sheet having a cold rolled surface is modified to make it tightly adherent to vitreous enamel which is finally applied to the iron sheet in an enameling step. The Spirig patent relates to a method of flux coating a metal wick in which a wick is heated in a reducing atmosphere and is immersed in a coating bath containing a solution of a rosin flux in an organic solvent, the solvent being subsequently evaporated.